


the rest is silence

by Itgoeson



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Bittersweet Ending, Language Barrier, Multi, but god the tension!, discussion of burning, the essek/caleb isn't explicitly stated, the whole crew is there - Freeform, which is the reason for the mature rating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 03:53:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20901209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itgoeson/pseuds/Itgoeson
Summary: Caleb is persuasive, is cunning and fierce and breathtaking. He's even more so when speaking his native Zemnian. And Essek wants to know more. For the Dynasty, and out of professional curiosity. The world keeps getting in the way, though.OR: 5 times Essek casts Comprehend Languages on himself to understand Caleb, and one time Caleb casts Comprehend Languages on Essek to make him understand.





	the rest is silence

It starts, as most things do in Essek’s life, out of curiosity.

It’s no more and no less than that. The need to  know , to understand, to not be left behind or waved off, is an insatiable creature that lives in his chest and twists up his insides with every moment he isn’t searching for the answers to something, anything. 

So he’s decided to forgive himself for whatever he’ll end up doing after watching the scourger’s eyes widen, watches her lean in as Caleb speaks Zemnian to her, as she almost — almost — seems to spill out all her secrets to Caleb before offering him a rusty laugh and contempt instead. 

Because Caleb had been persuasive. He’d been confident, speaking with conviction and gentleness. 

Essek had been aware that Caleb was capable of those things, in a distant sense. He is aware that he himself is only vaguely threatening when speaking in other languages because others are afraid of drow. He knows he only sees a facet of Caleb when he speaks Common, his curiosity just … hadn’t been piqued by the idea of what other Calebs existed. 

So Essek watches as Caleb seems to retreat into himself as they leave the sourger alone in her cell, and he resigns himself to finding out more about Caleb. 

*

Caleb’s accent is a muddled thing. It slows his speech, turns him pensive and thoughtful. Essek is not charmed by it, only interested. Academically speaking, the way Common catches on Caleb’s tongue, tangles him until he trips through seconds and minutes of stammering, is interesting. It speaks of translation, of phonemes that don’t exist in Common, of a syntax alien to what he’s used to.

Essek is fulfilling that curiosity, and satisfying his duty to the Kryn empire, by listening in as Caleb talks once more with the scourger. He stands to the back of the group as the Mighty Nein crowd around the cell bars, peering in at where Caleb kneels near the woman. Jester folds her arms and drapes herself against the door frame, making her biceps ripple. It’s cute, in Jester’s helpful-but-baffling way.

Surreptitiously, he grinds a bit of soot and salt between his fingers, whispering the incantation and blowing on his fingertips. In front of him, Fjord sneezes.

The scourger sniffles through her broken nose, then bares her teeth at Caleb as he continues to cajole her, his words shifting from a background rhythm to something he can understand.

She will die soon. But oh, until she does. 

“I do have something to offer. I’m curious. You have done a lot for the Assembly. You’ve killed a lot of enemies for the throne.” Caleb is earnest, is sincere as he takes a half step closer to her. Essek is frantically making mental notes on what he’s saying in the back of his brain, wondering if he should cast something to let him replay this conversation.

But a part of his brain is also fixating on Caleb’s confidence. It drips off his words. Essek is nearly taken in purely by what he’s saying, the force that he’s saying it with, instead of analyzing the woman in the chair. 

“I am very curious to know how it would affect you to know that some of those who you robbed of their breath were innocent. Completely innocent. Were as loyal as you,” Caleb continues. “What would that do to you?”

Then, for the first time in days, the scourger shows a reaction. She gives a sliver of a grin and leans forward, tensing against her chains. “We’ve both trained under the same man. You know the answer to that. There are things bigger than us.”

“And does it haunt you, that some of the deeds you’ve committed were predicated on lies?” Caleb has the stillness of a wild animal mid-hunt that has just realized that something might also be stalking behind it.

“I had my heart beaten out of me a long time ago. It’s about guiding history. Always has been.”

“I don’t know how my brothers and sisters could stomach wearing that mantle of loyalty knowing that it was woven so thoroughly from sin,” Caleb says without rancour. Would it be better, Essek wonders, if he were angry? Would he trust him more, or less? “And I am very sorry for you.”

“Good men don’t conquer. They die, and are forgotten. I’ll die and be forgotten. But at least I know some of my deeds changed the course of history.” Again, Essek finds his curiosity stoked. The scourger, at the end of her life, is still a worthwhile enemy. He can’t bring himself to write her off as much as he had before. 

“You’ve certainly learned your lessons by rote.”

“You still have a few to learn. I’m sure he’ll find you. I’ll be happy to finish what he couldn’t. He doesn’t like it when people don’t do what he says.”

“I’m sure it galls him. Very much. Do you know I think I’m a better friend to the Empire than the lot of you. You didn’t have to have this. You shouldn’t have had this. 

“It’s such a shame. So much potential and so little foresight.”

He asks about Astrid, then, and Eodwulf. Talks about the disappointment inevitable in talking with someone from his past. Essek is about to write off the whole conversation as, if not a waste, a gentle disappointment.

Then the scourger strikes. 

She whips forward with a snarl and a taunt, and in a blink, blood is flying out of Caleb’s neck as he lunges to return the favor by bashing her head with a rock. A gash opens above her eye, streaming blood than runs into her mouth, coats her teeth, mats the hair framing her face. Jester buffets her back with her shield as Caduceus shoulders past his friends to pull Caleb out of the cell. 

Less quickly than Essek would like, the guards shoot crossbow bolts into her chest and he inhales sharply as he casts faster than he can think, pulling the scourger into the air, her shoulders and hips popping with the strain against her chains. 

Caleb steps up, around Caduceus, around Jester, to stare the scourger in the eyes. He pivots just enough for Essek to see his profile and nods, once, decisively. Essek curls his hand into a fist, and with it, the scourger’s chest. 

He can’t think beyond rage for a moment. That this could happen under his watch, could happen to friends of the Dynasty, to Caleb. That his guards were slower than a group of young rebels and miscreants. 

Still, decisions must be made. Commands given. He squares his shoulders and tucks all this away to think over later. 

*

Caleb’s head is in his hands.

This is likely not unusual for the man, Essek thinks. Behind him, the Mighty Nein sleeps in a knotted sprawl, like too much yarn batted around by an angry cat. They’re fresh out of a fight, if the bandages on Beau’s midsection and the splint on Fjord’s shoulder are any indication. The clearing is silent apart from the scuttling and chirping of insects and bats flitting from tree to tree. 

Essek is only here on related matters. He has things to do that do not include the Mighty Nein or the ferrying about of the group. He is not their pack mule or transportation circle maker. 

But he had an unexpected trip to make for the Bright Queen and the group had been in a nearby town. Jester’s request to transport them, annoying as it might have been, was still informative, and so he’d dropped by to see what they were up to. It was never a bad idea to check on Dynasty allies when they were deep in Empire territory. 

He slips into their small encampment silently, melting out of the shadows of the trees a few yards away.

“Is this your idea of being on watch?”

“Mm,” comes Caleb’s reply. He doesn’t so much as flinch at hearing Essek’s voice. “Not enough spells for something safer.”

“Did something … happen?” Essek finally asks, after the quiet has stretched on a tiresome amount of time. 

Whatever Caleb says in response is lost in translation, but he gestures to a silver thread that’s half-hidden in the grass. Ah, an alarm spell. Essek hums in acknowledgement.

When Caleb lifts his head to stare into the distance, his eyes are vacant, his hands flopping bonelessly over his knees. He doesn’t seem to be able to work through Common, to communicate what he wants Essek to know. His clothes are singed and he looks exhausted, purple shadows under his eyes that Essek mistakes for dirt on first glance and his mouth a harsh slash of unhappiness.

Essek breathes out slowly. He wants to know more. He wants to know what has Caleb focused on something that isn’t present, that isn’t an issue here and now, letting him ignore Essek, ignore a threat like Essek. 

Well, only one thing for it, then. He casts Comprehend Languages again and settles himself cross-legged on the ground next to Caleb. He doubts Caleb would have missed his casting, but just in case, he nudges him along. “Well, you’ve got me here, though I’ll have to leave in a moment. What’s important, Caleb Widogast?”

Caleb sighs. “You can understand this?” he asks in Zemnian.

Essek nods. “For now.”

That makes Caleb relax, his shoulders drooping. “Jester scried on Yasha, the last member of our party.”

“I remember.”

He nods. “She has been overtaken by her past. I do not know if it was herself, or a god, or just a vicious man who knows how to hammer her into something he can use. But she is not our friend at the moment.” He looks over at Essek, and his eyes gleam, starlight dancing in his irises, making his skin paler than usual, the red of his hair turned a bloody copper. “She is a threat, but she is also one of us. 

“In Jester’s vision, she was killing innocents. She was what we all fear she has become … and if she is, if she has turned into what so many of us have narrowly escaped from … I am afraid of what that means for all of us. I am afraid of what we would do to stop her.”

“Or what you couldn’t do,” Essek supplies.

Caleb blanches at that, but hums in agreement anyway. His voice sounds lighter, somehow, in Zemnian, even though he is clearly distraught. 

Essek does not know how to tell him that he understands, because he does not. Nor does he know how to tell him that, whenever Caleb needs to think in Zemnian, to share his thoughts more clearly than he can with his comrades, Essek is never far away. 

Instead, Essek spreads his hands. “You are not alone, Caleb. Even if your friends cannot stop her, the Dynasty can. She is not your concern if you fail to stop her. You have other missions to complete.”

“Is that supposed to reassure me?”

Essek cocks his head to the side. “No. Your friend might die. But it should give you … absolution. Her fate does not have to rest in your hands. You can give that up.”

“And if I am the only one qualified to decide if she lives or dies?”

That is something Essek did not expect Caleb to ask. Perhaps he should have. Caleb has more pride than most of them know. He has more anger, too. Essek hesitates. “Then I hope you get to her before the Dynasty does.”

Caleb looks at him for a long moment. “I have faith in your judgement, Essek Thelyss. If I cannot pass judgement, then I hope it can be you. I think we could all live with that.”

What does one say to a declaration like that? Essek is out of his depth. He feels like he’s just been handed a secret, a prize, a blank tarot card. So he says nothing, and stands with more finality than he feels. 

“Until next time, Caleb,” he says, and  snaps himself three towns over.

*

“It’s going to be okay, Cay-leb,” Jester trills, drawing out Caleb’s name the way she does when nervous. “Fjord took down one of them, and Beau took out the rest, apart from … uh, well. The thing is, it’s going to be okay!” And she claps her hands together. 

When she pulls them apart, there is a soft, blue-pink light radiating out of them. “See, even the Traveler wants you to be okay,” she says with a little grin, laying her hands on Caleb’s forearms where they’re wrapped around his head. 

The lesser restoration spell does nothing. Caleb continues to mutter, a soft repetition of “es tut mir Leid,” and “mein Fehler,” the syllables slurring into one another. Essek watches her quietly, wondering what she could have thought would happen. A healing spell is different than whatever would fix Caleb now.

Less than a hundred feet in front of them, Beau and Nott are finishing the last of the Empire scouts. Caduceus is hugging Fjord with an almost aggressive kindness, radiating his own healing energy. 

So Essek watches. Watches Jester wilt a little when Caleb fails to snap out of wherever his brain has sent him, then stand and straighten her shoulders, marching over to start rummaging through the belongings of the dead. 

While it’s temporarily quiet, Essek pinches his salt and soot again, whispers into the wind again, and suddenly, Caleb’s words resolve themselves into something he can understand. It’s a mash of apologies and self-recrimination. 

It’s strange to hear Caleb’s Zemnian so imprecise. 

Until now, he’s been charismatic each time Essek has made the effort to listen to him. He goes over now, kneeling beside him. “Why are you sorry?”

Caleb shakes his head, falling silent but still mouthing the words. 

“What do you have to blame yourself for?” Essek asks again, rephrasing his question.

Another headshake. “Fire. Fire. Always fire and fat.” Caleb swallows, and his eyes are glassy, staring at something Essek suspects hasn’t existed in a very long time. “I’ve heard it said that it smells like cooking meat. Do you smell bacon, Essek?”

Essek takes a moment to sniff. It smells like the ozone of his own magic from where he’d cast his shadow to take out one of the scouts, like sweat from the whole group, like char from where Caleb had let loose a wall of fire that had nearly incinerated three of the opposing party. But does it smell like meat? 

Caleb shakes his head again, breathing more deeply than he had before. “People burning … it’s the hair that makes it smell so different. And the fat. Their clothes. Can’t smell like meat when there’s so much else the fire is eating. Because people do smell like meat, if you burn the right ones. Ones not wearing much, with short hair.”

It’s not something Essek has given much thought to before, although there aren’t many magic users that specialize in fire in the Dynasty. Still, it makes sense. He nods in understanding. “Unpleasant,” he says neutrally, trying to catch Caleb’s eye.

And it works, more or less. Caleb breathes out harshly through his nose, his eyes clearing a bit. “Well, that’s battle madness for you,” he says with a chuckle. “That was good work out there. You think well on your feet. I’m sorry you had to deal with this.”

Essek raises an eyebrow. “I didn’t believe your group was responsible for running into a band of Empire scouts prepared for a skirmish,” he drawls, “as you were searching for your friend.”

“Yes, well. Finding her, continuing to search for her, will be enough trouble on its own, no?” Caleb grins. If his smile is a bit grim — well, there are still smoldering corpses scattered around, ash where grass used to be, and a spray of blood over it all besides. “So I am sorry we had to invite extra trouble on the side. For us and for you.”

Essek stands up again, but reaches down. “My offer to kill her if I find her still stands,” he says. Caleb ducks his head, frowning.

He clears his throat. “The longer we search, the more damage she does. I am beginning to believe that some sins are our own to fix, or to atone for. She’s one of us. But thank you for the offer. And I know you will do what you must if you see her first, but we are more than willing to continue this fight. To save her or not, to help those we can, to pull the Laughing Hand apart mouth by mouth and burn the rest of them to cinders. But,” he smiles tiredly at Essek, “all of that is only if we find them first. Thank you again.”

“Come on,” he tells Caleb, sidestepping the conversation. “Up you go. Your friends will be worried about you.”

Once Caleb is standing — not bothering to dust himself off, or casting a spell to clean himself — Essek floats off, giving the Mighty Nein time to regroup.

As he drifts off, he hears Beau, who hasn’t bothered to lower her voice. “So, uhh, what the fuck were you guys talking about?” she asks, slapping at Caleb’s coat as if trying to help shake out some of the dust. From the way Caleb blinks quickly and stares at her, she’s mostly just managing to hit Caleb hard enough to hurt but softly enough for him to not admit it. “Because he wasn’t saying much, and you were pretty much just, uh, talking in Zemnian.”

More blinking in Beau’s direction. Then, “Well,” he says, switching back to Common, “it’s … a bit hard to translate, ja? But all good things.”

*

When he goes to the Xhorhouse, he isn’t expecting the front door to be unlocked. He checks it over for traps or magic and tries the handle as a formality. It swings open silently, though, allowing him to slip through unseen. He pauses to close it and listen for any sign of movement. 

The house feels awake. There’s a thrum to the air, like people are living here, that candles have recently been blown out, dishes washed, books thumbed through. It feels warm. 

He discards that thought as soon as it occurs. He’s here on behalf of the Bright Queen, not personal curiosity, not anything like worry or friendship. 

He ghosts through the first floor, peeking into open doorways, searching out a study or hidden compartments. The living room turns up nothing, nor do the open bedrooms.

Something earthy and green-smelling wafts from the kitchen. Essek keeps his back to the wall as he edges into the kitchen, where Caduceus is singing softly to himself, off-key in a rumbling baritone. Essek pauses to watch him pour honey into his tea then freeze, gaze sweeping over the room. 

Caduceus’ eyebrows furrow, turning him strangely ageless. His eyes track along the wall and he starts to make his way over to where Essek is caught like a moth in the light, unsure of where to go for a moment. He snaps his fingers, ticking back just a few seconds, and stops himself from entering the kitchen.

He makes a mental note to himself: Caduceus is always, always more perceptive than he seems. 

Instead of cutting through the kitchen, he sneaks up the stairs. At the landing he cocks his head. From his left is a soft murmuring, flowing light as a spring breeze and just as unhurried. It is, he realizes, Caleb. Zemnian curls quietly through the empty hallway. To his left, a door is ajar, pink and blue lights spilling out and sparking into neon purples where they twine together.

Essek spins the ring of invisibility on his finger, weighing his chances. Caduceus had seen through it once, even if Essek had managed to undo that. Would more people miss him? 

He shrugs. The Mighty Nein have pulled enough shit to have to forgive him if they find him creeping through his home. He doubts he’s the only one to do it, either. 

(He would prefer to not believe the Bright Queen’s intelligence saying that a member of the Cobalt Soul has been residing here, gathering their own intelligence. He does not have the luxury of belief.)

A sniffle cuts through the voice, then a small hiccup, like a sob cut off. 

Essek squares his shoulders. Nothing for it, then. He casts Comprehend Languages and edges closer to the door. 

“Oh, my darlings. I forget how young you are. Your hearts will be broken again, in more ways than this. But I hope that they are not broken so thoroughly. We are doing what we must. I am so proud of you.” 

A pause, and Essek leans into the doorway just far enough to see Caleb drop a kiss onto the top of Jester’s head from where she’s sitting at his side. “So proud of both of you.” He pauses again to twist to his other side from where he’s sandwiched on the bed, dropping a kiss onto Beau’s head that is mostly tucked under his chin, craning back to reach. Essek recognizes the topknot she keeps her hair in. Beau sniffles sullenly and wipes angrily at her nose.

Jester is staring blankly at the wall. Her eyes don’t glisten, her face is still. The lights are hers, but even they are moving sluggishly, wriggling in fat strands across the ceiling. 

Caleb sighs and leans back against the headboard. “I wish I knew how to tell you both how very brave and strong you are. Beau, you’ve left behind everyone who should have loved you and became something better than any of them could hope to be. You are so strong, and not just because you can punch things and bench press Fjord. You have been a better friend than I know how to thank you for. Your heart could fuel a forge for centuries.

“And Jester, you are the soul of this group. So strange and enchanting. We would follow you anywhere. I will follow you wherever you ask. You left behind someone who loved you as much as she could, and I am so selfishly grateful that you did. You make me remember what loyalty tastes like. That devotion is not something that binds and restrains us, it is something that frees us.

“I want to burn the world for you girls. For Nott. For Caduceus. For Fjord. For the memory of Molly. I want to shred time itself just to keep you safe.”

Caleb drapes an arm around Jester, and she looks over at him, startled. “Cay-leb, are you okay?”

“I am not,” he says tiredly, in Common this time. “But I think we can get closer to okay together.”

Jester smiles at him. “I can be fine for the three of us, then.”

Beau leans over to throw a pillow at Jester’s torso. “Shut the fuck up, Jes. We’re all sad. You’re allowed to be sad.”

Jester closes her eyes just as Caleb inhales quickly. The lights above them turn a navy blue, dark enough that Essek stares at them for a moment just trying to figure out how they’re still emitting light. 

“I always turn out okay,” Jester says slowly, voice wobbling a smidge. “The Traveler always makes things better. He won’t let this get out of control.”

“You had better, Traveler,” Caleb switches to Zemnian with another sigh. “You are probably their only hope of coming out of this with any semblance of life.”

Beau punches his shoulder. “Hey. I don’t know what you’re saying, but don’t. You’re sounding fuckin’ morbid over here.”

“Only trying to … offer comfort,” Caleb tries.

Jester laughs weakly. “I feel comforted, Caleb! I like it when you speak in Zemnian. You say more than you do in Common. I feel like I’m getting to know a new you.”

Essek frowns even as Caleb smiles at her, affonted by Jester’s ability to tell Caleb what he has been thinking for … 

That is not the point of this excursion. 

The Mighty Nein traveled into the Empire to reconnect with old contacts and discover more about the Empire’s plans and secrets. They were trying to track down other information on the Laughing Hand and his gang of miscreants as well. They were not there to socialize, cause an incident dire enough to be news in four countries, and pass up a chance at another Dynasty relic, but here they are. 

They’d come back to report on their time away. They had even managed to tell their story to the Dynasty’s senior advisors with only minor lies. 

It was the gaps they’d left in their report that forced Essek to come to the Xhorhaus to investigate, more than even their failure to complete their mission. 

Why didn’t they address rumors that a spy lived in their house? Why didn’t they take the relic with them? What was the Empire planning? Whose side were they on, truly?

Essek shook his head and swept away from the door. There’d be no searching there for the moment. He kept the spell up as he made his way into the next empty room, though. One never knew when they’d find a document in another language. 

*

It’s unfair for ugly things to happen on such a beautiful day. 

They’re on the lowest slopes of a mountain range. Birds crackle and dart in the forest below. The sky is a clear, radiant blue that looks like it could hold any heartache. And the Mighty Nein is surrounded by Kryn soldiers in the heartbeats separating Caduceus’ encouragements and Jester’s laughter. 

Caduceus and Beau are the first to see the soldiers melting out of the trees. Caduceus is casting blessings on his companions even as Beau hurtles herself toward a shadow, bouncing off of one just to elbow its master, then slipping harmlessly through another. One of the shadows and one of the drow that she’d hit lash back at her. The shadow’s fist misses, but the drow’s blade leaves a clean slice on her bicep. She jerks back, hands raised and bouncing on her feet, as Caduceus starts to herd Caleb to the center of their group. 

From his vantage point on an outcropping of rock just above them, he sees Nott crouch, then dart back toward the group. He stands and grasps her without a second thought.

Caleb starts to say something, looking nervously at Fjord, before catching sight of Essek. His mouth opens and closes, opens and closes, opens and works around nothing. 

“Do not move, Mighty Nein,” Essek warns them. “We are here to arrest you, for treason against the Kryn Dynasty, espionage, murder, and other charges as shall be presented in the Court of the Bright Queen. You will be judged and, should your sentence be upheld, punished accordingly.”

He watches their reactions closely as his words hit them like a physical blow. 

Beau scowls, shoulders tensing, even as she takes a steadying breath. Her eyes dart around without moving her head, evaluating threats. 

A few steps behind her, Fjord shifts slightly so he’s facing the soldiers at the peripheral of Beau’s vision. He flexes the hand that summons his sword. “I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding,” he says, muscling his voice into a friendly tone. “One that we would be more than happy to clear up, here or at the court. But you must understand, we would prefer to clear it up with some assurance that you will not strike us down.”

Jester reaches out to touch his shoulder behind him, aiming for the skin of his neck. A spell of some kind, then. She hefts her shield higher onto her arm, mouthing silent words. 

Their effort to protect one another is admirable but meaningless. Essek doesn’t move, doesn’t blink. “You have been charged. It is not my place to judge or absolve. Lay down your weapons and disperse your spells.”

Caduceus shifts so he’s directly opposite of Jester in their group, mostly obscuring Caleb. 

Legs kicking at the air and ears twitching, Nott gives a screech of indignation. “Let me go, you bastard!”

Caleb jerks, hands flying out of his pockets. He spares a look at Fjord, who nods, then Caduceus, who smiles encouragingly. Then, he snaps his fingers, spraying soot and salt into the air as he whispers a short incantation. 

When he speaks, it’s in Zemnian. Essek can tell and not-tell what he’s saying. The sensation, so familiar and so unexpected, almost makes his own spell holding Nott in the air waver. 

“My friend,” he calls as the soldiers surrounding them ready their weapons. “My friend,” he says again after he has everyone’s attention. “Let go of Nott. Don’t hurt her, please.”

“You waste your time making requests I will not grant,” Essek hisses. 

Caleb’s eyebrows furl. His lips curl down and his shoulders hunch and he looks suddenly so small. Essek swallows and hopes he’s far enough away for them to not have noticed.

“Perhaps I do. But I think there is good in you. There is so much good in you, Essek Thelyss. It is impossible to miss. Please, at least listen to me for a moment, then, if you cannot let Nott go.”

Son of a bitch, Essek thinks, but his head jerks in a reluctant nod anyway. 

Caleb clears his throat. “You are not wrong, but that does not make you right. We are being played by forces much greater than ourselves. The Laughing Hand is not acting alone. He and his crew serve the King That Crawls, and they hope to raze this world more thoroughly than you or I could do in three lifetimes. No matter how much power you have at your disposal, how many lives you may be gifted, you will not live to see the end of the devastation he plans to visit upon this world.

“Essek, we have been friends, have we not? I have not always been the best friend. I do not claim to have treated you well, to have thanked you as I should. I do not intend to start now. Because this is more than formality or friendship. 

“If you kill Nott here, it will not stop us. But it will ensure that when my friends and I have finished our duty, when we have protected both the Empire and the Dynasty from horrors you have not had the misfortune to witness, I will not forgive you. I will not forgive the Dynasty from taking away my friend.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Essek sees Beau make a  what the fuck face at Fjord, who shakes his head and shrugs back. Jester closes her eyes, breathing deep. Praying? Or casting a powerful spell? 

Either way, the Mighty Nein won’t attack if Caleb is still reasoning with him. Foolishly, Essek still hopes that Caleb will give it up, will give in and convince his friends to surrender by extension. He answers instead of focusing on the unease prickling at the back of his neck. Caleb seems honest, persuasive, demanding. “You haven’t yet explained why we should let you go.”

“Because,” Caleb says, “they are amassing forces. They have been stirring up a plot that plays the Empire and Dynasty against one another, all while they slip into your homes and poison your children. Demons from the abyss have crept into the streets and all the while you blame each other. We are trying to stop this at the source. We are attempting to save both kingdoms. What we do after is your choice. What happens after can wait. But I cannot stand by and await a trial for imagined crimes while the world burns around us. I will not do that a second time, Essek Thelyss.”

Essek shakes his head. He almost — he almost relents. Almost waves him on, tells him this will be their secret, as so many things are. 

But. He can’t stop thinking about Jester, Beau, and Caleb in that small bed in the Xhorhaus, so clearly upset about a betrayal, about their safety being taken away. He thinks about how Caleb has enchanted him from the beginning. His words, so polished and precise in Zemnian, and how Essek has been unable to look away or refuse him each time he has made the effort to really understand the man. 

He cannot let his fascination undercut the safety of his nation. 

“Caleb. You do not have a choice in what happens next. You can only decide how safe your friends are while we take you back to Court.”

Caleb nods calmly and says, in Common this time, “ emerald! ”

Beau spins into an about-face and springs forward, dashing to where Nott still hangs, suspended and snarling. 

He blinks just as Jester claps her hands and laughs gleefully, sing-songing a spell. It makes less sense than Jester usually does, until he feels his spell drop, sending Nott careening down directly into Beau’s arms. 

Essek blinks again, ticks back the seconds enough to find himself holding Nott aloft again — and still his spell drops. Nott still falls into Beau’s arms, albeit less gracefully this time.

Two of the drow dart up to strike, one nicking Jester’s back as she finishes her casting, the other’s shortsword glancing off of Caduceus’ armor. 

A crossbow bolt sinks home into Fjord’s side. He takes it with a grunt and his sword sparkles damply into his hand. He thrusts the tip of his sword into the ground. A ripple shakes the earth as it hits, knocking three of the soldiers onto their backs and dispelling two of the shadows. 

Beau slings Nott onto her back as she runs back to the group. Even bouncing, Nott takes a second to brace herself on Beau’s shoulder and fires off two shots at the remaining soldiers. One disappears into the distance, while the second one connects with a thud into the elbow of one of the soldiers wielding a crossbow. 

“Hurry,” Caleb shouts, holding his hands out to either side. Jester grabs one and reaches out to grab Fjord by the nape of his neck with her free hand. He brings his sword up to parry one of the soldiers who was not thrown to the ground, keeping himself between them and his friends.

Beau collides with Caduceus, who finishes dispersing one of the soldier’s spells just as she knocks into him. He rolls with the momentum, wrapping an arm around her and clasping Caleb’s beckoning hand with the other.

Two more crossbow bolts fire, one sinking into Caleb’s shoulder, the other into his stomach. 

He coughs on reflex and pushes his spell onto his breath. The group fizzles, vanishes. 

Essek lets the spell he’d been aiming at Caduceus fire harmlessly into the now-empty clearing. The soldiers step back and look up to him, off-kilter from the abrupt halt to the skirmish, before fanning out to scan their surroundings. 

“Don’t bother,” Essek tells them. He breathes in and out, nose flaring and eyes darkening. “They’re far gone by now.”

He floats down from his perch and gestures for the group to reform around him. They’d had intelligence that the Might Nein were on their way to rescue their friend Yasha and would be passing through these mountains, into the southern edge of the continent. No one was sure where they were going after that. 

It’s possible that they had teleported to one of the circles Caleb was familiar with, and thus will pop back up somewhere the Dynasty can track. It is equally likely, though, that the group had picked up a rock or other object on their trek thus far and will teleport themselves back to that spot in the next few days, bringing them back to the area. 

It’s not a risk he wants to take. 

The soldiers are watching him warily. He does not lose often, nor do his soldiers. One is still hunched over, arm set awkwardly and a gash on his forehead bleeding into his eye. Another is breathing quickly and shallowly, arms bracing her ribs.

The group has few healers. It isn’t often that they need many. Their sole cleric is making their way around, laying hands on those who look the worst. Essek seethes silently for a moment.

Then, a voice. Bubbly and grating, Jester’s words bloom in his mind like a blooming fungus. “Hello Essek! Sorry to fight you. But you should be more sorry. We’re trying to save your life! Please leave us alone. Okaythanksbye!”

He doesn’t dignify that with a response. Once he feels the connection break, though, he signals for his squad to circle together for their own teleport. 

Later, after he has recounted the events to one of the Dynasty generals, he makes his way to the Xhorhaus. Through the well-oiled door, past the dusty kitchen and up the pitch-black staircase. Into the room just down the hall from the one he’d heard Caleb, Jester, and Beau in. He pushes open the door and sighs. 

Dim light filters in from the window. The air here is even staler than in the rest of the house. The bed is neatly made, corners fastidiously folded, pillows plumped with the seams of the pillowcases tucked under the cushions. 

And on the wall, in vivid reds and pinks and oranges, in muted browns and carefully-shaded yellows, is a field of flowers. Essek is half-tempted to reach out, to see if there is something there that he could pick, could bundle into a bow and offer as an empty apology. 

He drops down to sit on the bed and ignores the cloud of dust that puffs around him.

Ages ago, or maybe months, he had promised that he would kill Yasha for the Might Nein if they were not there to do it themselves, if it came to it. Now it’s all twisted around each other, these threads of possibility. That Yasha will live, the Mighty Nein vindicated in her defense. That the Mighty Nein kill her, and do indeed save the world. That they instead betray the Dynasty, a disloyalty in a long line of mistrust and backstabbing. That they are allies, and the circumstantial evidence against them is easily explained as the wiles of fate.

Lies. Honesty. Right and wrong. Essek is a patriot or as treasonous as he fears the Mighty Nein are. He is a fool or too clever to fall for their tricks. 

“Caleb,” he whispers, “I am afraid I cannot tell what you mean and what you want me to think. I wanted to know you better before I had to decipher one from the other.”

He is tired of trying to predict the future. He stands and makes a sweeping motion with his hands. The dust settles on the bed like he had never been there, the blankets unwrinkling and the sheets uncreasing. He takes a final moment to stare at the flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> When Essek "rolls back the clock," he's just using Fortune's Favor and making people reroll. 
> 
> Also, I like to think that the M9's "jenga" is "emerald," in the sense that the traveler is green, and it's a cue for Jester to immediately cause chaos. Like fluffernutter, but without an explosion. Does Jester actually equip herself with dispel magic? I like to think that if she's preparing for a fight she might. But frankly, only Laura Bailey knows the answer to that on any given day.
> 
> The tumblr post it's based on is here: https://freckledmoss.tumblr.com/post/187570701773/listen-idk-how-to-write-fanfic-and-i-dont-have


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